nd discounted among our
friends' fellow-passengers.

'I have seen her every day, of course,' said Caldigate, 'and have been
looking at her for the last half hour.'

'She is looking at us now.'

'She seems to me to be very attentive to the stocking she is mending.'

'Just a woman's wiles. At this moment she can't hear us, but she knows
pretty nearly what we are saying by the way our lips are going. Have you
spoken to her?'

'I did say a word or two to her yesterday.'

'What did she say?'

'I don't recollect especially. She struck me as talking better than her
gown, if you know what I mean.'

'She talks a great deal better than her gown,' said Dick. 'I don't quite
know what to make of her. She says that she is going out to earn her
bread; but when I asked her how, she either couldn't or wouldn't answer
me. She is a mystery, and mysteries are always worth unravelling. I
shall go to work and unravel her.'

At that moment the female of whom they were speaking got up from her
seat on one of the spars which was bound upon the deck, folded up her
work, and walked away. She was a remarkable woman, and certainly looked
to be better than her gown, which was old and common enough. Caldigate
had observed her frequently, and had been much struck by the word or two
she had spoken to him on the preceding day. 'I should like ship-life
well enough,' she had said, in answer to some ordinary question, 'if it
led to nothing else.'

'You would not remain here for ever?'

'Certainly, if I could. There is plenty to eat, and a bed to sleep on,
and no one to be afraid of. And though nobody knows me, everybody knows
enough of me not to think that I ought to be taken to a police office
because I have not gloves to my hands.'

'Don't you think it wearisome?' he had asked.

'Everything is wearisome; but here I have a proud feeling of having paid
my way. To have settled in advance for your dinner for six weeks to come
is a magnificent thing. If I get too tired of it I can throw myself
overboard. You can't even do that in London without the police being
down upon you. The only horror to me here is that there will so soon be
an end to it.'

At that time he had not even heard her name, or known whether she were
alone or joined to others. Then he had inquired, and a female
fellow-passenger had informed him that she was a Mrs. Smith,--that she
had seen better days, but had been married to a ne'er-do-well husband,
who had drank himself t